Hunters of Gor (28 page)

generosity, would have seen that she accepted my proposal. I recalled she had

once been slave, and that I had, on a certain occasion, in the house of Cernus,

seen her fully. Other things being equal, I would, of course, prefer a beautiful

companion. Claudia, as I recalled with pleasure, was beautiful. Further, she,

once having been slave, would promise delights not always obtainable from an

ignorant free woman. A woman who has once been slave, incidentally, often wishes

to kiss and touch again in the shadow of the slave ring. Why this is I do not

know. Beauty in a companion, of course, is not particularly important. Family

and power are. In a house such as that of Bosk there are always beautiful slave

girls, eager to please, each hoping to become first girl. But I dismissed

Claudius Tentius Hinrabia. The Hinrabians, with the exception of herself, had

been wiped out. Thus she was, for practical purposes, of a high name but without

family.

There were various jarls in Torvaldsland who had daughters, but these,

generally, were ignorant, primitive women. Moreover, no one jarl held great

power in Torvaldsland. It was not uncommon for the daughter of a jarl in that

bleak place, upon the arrival of a suitor, to be called in from the pastures,

where she would be tender her father’s verr.

There were Ubars to the far south, I knew, but their countries were often small,

and lay far inland. They exercised little political power beyond their own

borders.

It seemed clear that I should take unto myself as companion the daughter of some

Ubar or Administrator, but few seemed appropriate. Too, many Ubars and

Administrators might not wish to ally their house with that of a mere merchant.

That thought irritated me.

Gorean pride runs deep.

Perhaps I should think of the daughter of Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos. She was

the daughter of a Ubar. He would doubtless let her go if the Companionship Price

were sufficiently attractive.

The ideal, of course, would have been if Marlenus of Ar, the greatest of the

Ubars, had had a daughter. But he had no daughter. She had been disowned.

The daughter of Lurius of Jad was a possibility. I could probably buy her.

But perhaps it was too early for me to think of Companionship.

I could wait. I was patient.

I was furious!

I had failed to rescue Talena! She had been disowned! I and my men had fallen to

panther girls. We would have been raped and sold slave had we not been rescued

by the incomparable Marlenus of Ar. It was to him that Verna and her girls had

fallen. He had won her and conquered her, superbly, even insolently telling her

when to place a talender in her hair. he hunted and amused himself while I and

my men, his guests, partook of his hospitality at his camp, dining on his

largesse. He had defeated me, devastatingly, in the game. And he, when it

pleased him, would free Talena, and return her to Ar.

And I, and my men, would return to our businesses, empty handed, our heads

bearing the shaved degradation swath of panther girls. Why had we not been raped

and sold? Because we had been saved by Marlenus, the great Ubar, the Ubar of

Ubars!

He had saved us.

We returned, laughing stocks, empty handed, while he would go back to Ar as its

victorious Ubar, again successful. We would have nothing. He would have his

acclaims and his glories. Even the shame of Talena would not shame him, for he

had cut her off from him. But, in his generosity, he would free her, and return

her to Ar and permit her to live, sequestered in his palace.

Noble, great Ubar!

And who would remember Talena, and her shame, after Marlenus, astride a mighty

tharlarion, would have his triumph in the streets of Ar, panther girls in tiny

cages slung on poles carried by huntsmen, and walking beside his beast, naked

and chained to his stirrup, their former leader, Verna, now only a slave.

Marlenus, I asked myself, are you always victorious?

How great a man he was. And how small he made me seem. I began to hate Marlenus,

Ubar of Ar.

There was little to do now but return to Port Kar. I was now near the Tesephone.

Marlenus, it seemed, was always successful, always fortunate. He never, it

seemed, miscalculated.

He had not miscalculated Verna, and her band. She, and they, were his, female

slaves. And who else might dare to be enemy of such a man? Who else had he to

fear? Who else, as danger, might figure as worthy to be included in the

calculations of such a warrior, such a Ubar?

Marlenus never miscalculated.

I began to look forward to my return to the Tesephone. My being alone in the

forest, my thoughts fierce and angry within me, had been good.

I would permit my men, for a time, to observe and laugh at my hair, joking with

them, for otherwise it would be difficult for them, terribly difficult. Then,

when their tension had been released, I would reassert my authority as captain.

If there were any who cared to dispute it, we could debate the matter with

steel.

But none would care to dispute it. I knew this crew. They were picked men, and

good men.

I was interested in seeing again the delicious, quick-handed little Tina, Rim’s

lovely slave, Cara, and in particular a former panther girl, a proud,

sweet-bodied, dark-haired girl, who wore my collar, who had found herself

helpless in my hands, whose name was Sheera.

I was anxious to see again Thurnock, and Rim, who had returned to the Tesephone

with Grenna, the girl I had captured in the forest, who had stood high in Hura’s

band. At her arrival at the Tesephone she would have been branded and placed in

my collar. Then her wound would have been tended, as a slave’s wound is tended,

with effectiveness, but roughness. She had had good legs. I thought she would

look well in a slave tunic. Perhaps I would give her to Arn, when he, with my

other men, returned to the Tesephone the day after tomorrow, coming from the

camp of Marlenus.

We would then follow the current down river, lay in at Laura, then proceed to

Lydius, remain at Lydius for two days, for the pleasure of the men, and then

return to Port Kar.

I smiled to myself. I recalled that there should be, at my camp, four paga

slaves. I had had Rim rent them in Laura. He had rented them from a tavern

keeper in Laura, a man named Hesius. Rim had said the girls were beauties. I had

not yet seem them. My steps quickened. I was anxious to do so.

As I strode toward the camp, my hand held the great bow. Over my left shoulder,

slung was sword and scabbard. At my belt was a sleen knife; at my hip, in a

verr-skin quiver, temwood sheaf arrows, nineteen of them, piled with steel,

winged with the feathers of the vosk gull.

Paga slaves are usually lovely girls I recalled Tana, a paga slave I had met in

Lydius. She was a lovely girl, a beautiful example, belled and silked, of such a

slave.

Strangely Hesius had asked for no deposit on his girls, as a surety for their

return. This only now struck me as unusual. Surely we were not known to him.

Further, now, as I thought of such matters, I recalled his rent price had seemed

very low, particularly for fine girls, as Rim had assured me these were. Prices

were supposedly low in Laura. I was prepared to believe that. Yet were prices

that low? Could they be that low? Suddenly my hand went white on the great bow.

I stopped and strung it. I removed an arrow from the quiver. I set the arrow to

the string. I felt very cold and hard, and yet in a rage. We had been fools. I

recalled, with savage understanding, with an understanding as sudden and

terrible, as that of a lightning flash over Torvaldsland, that this Hesius, this

tavern keeper of Laura, had, free of charge, as a gesture of good will, included

wine with the shipment of girls to my camp.

Inwardly I howled with rage.

The men of Tyros!’

I, like a fool, obsessed with the pursuit of Talena, blind to all, had forgotten

them.

I approached the camp of the Tesephone with great caution. One shadow among

others, silent, from between branches, observed the camp.

The wall which had been built about the camp had been broken and thrown down.

Here and there there were the ashes of campfires. There was debris on the

campsite. The sand, in many places, was torn, as though there might have been

struggles. There was, deep in the sand, the impression of a keel, leading to the

water.

My men, the slaves, the Tesephone, were gone. I clenched my fist, and put my

forehead to the green branch behind which I stood.

13
   
I Re-Enter the Forest

I unclenched my fist. I lifted my head from the branch, against which I had

placed it.

I, Bosk of Port Kar, was not pleased.

Doubtless there would be some men of Tyros about, waiting for anyone who might

return to the camp.

I decided I would wish to meet these men. I did not care to leave them behind

me.

I sat down on the leaves, and waited.

In the late afternoon I saw the, eleven of them, coming toward the camp on the

shore side, from downriver, as thought from Laura.

They came rather boldly. They were fools.

I had approached the camp of the Tesephone with great caution. I had been one

shadow among others, silent. They had had no guards posted.

One of them carried a bottle.

They knew little of the forests. It was their misfortune. With them, I noted,

grimly, were four girls. They were in throat coffle, their wrists behind them,

bound. The girls were laughing and joking with them. They wore yellow silk. They

were doubtless the paga slaves from Laura.

They had been instrumental in the surprise and taking of my camp. Doubtless they

had been told to see that all males in the camp partook of the wine which had

been sent upriver with them. They would have understood the plot. They would

have been partner to it. Now, charmingly, they, bound, teased and jested with

the men of Tyros. They were lovely slaves.

I would meet those men of Tyros. I strode forth to the camp, and stood and faced

them.

They were struck for a moment, seeing me, standing some hundred and fifty yards

from them, regarding them.

The girls were thrust to one side.

The men drew their blades and rushed forward, charging me. They were fools.

At point-blank range the temwood shaft can be fired completely through a

four-inch beam at two hundred yards it can pin a man to a wall; at four hundred

yards it can kill the huge shambling, bosk; it fires nineteen arrows in a Gorean

Ehn, some eighty Earth seconds; a skilled bowman, and not an unusual one, is

expected to be able to put these nineteen arrows in an Ehn into a man-sized

target consecutively, each a mortal hit, at some two hundred and fifty yards.

Shouting the war cry of Tyros, blades drawn, they ran toward me across the sand

and pebbles of the northern shore of the Laurius.

These men knew only the crossbow.

They ran toward me as I had wanted them to, near the edge of the river, in the

shortest line, away from the trees.

Their cries drifted toward me, their order to surrender. They did not understand

who it was who hunted.

My feet were spread; my heels were aligned with the target; my feet and body

were at right angles to the target line; my head was turned sharply to the left;

the first sheaf arrow was drawn to its pile; the three half feathers of the vosk

gull were at my jawbone.

“Surrender!’ cried the leader, stopping some twenty feet from me. He was under

my arrow. He knew I might kill him. ”There are too many,” he said. “Put down

your weapon.”

Instead I drew a bead on his heart.

“No!” he cried. “Attack!” he cried to his men. “Kill him!”

He turned again to face me. His face was white. In a line behind him, on the

beach, his men scattered. Only one moved.

In hunting one often fells the last of the attackers first, and then the second

of the attackers, and so on. In this fashion, the easiest hits are saved for

last, when there is less danger of losing a kill. Further, the lead animals are

then unaware that others have fallen behind them. They are thus less aware of

their danger. They regard as misses that way, in actuality, be hits on others,

unknown to them.

The man from Tyros was alone.

White-faced, he threw down his sword.

“Charge,” I told him.

“No,” he said. “No!”

“The sword?” I asked.

“You are Bosk,” he whispered, “Bosk of Port Kar!”

‘”I am he,” I said.

“No, not the sword,” said he, “No,”

“The knife?” I asked.

“No!’ he cried.

“There is safety for you,” I said, gesturing across the Laurius with my head,

“if you reach the other side.”

“There are rive sharks,” he said. “Tharlarion!”

I regarded him.

He turned and fled to the water. I watched. Luck was not with him. I saw the

distant churning in the water, and saw, far off, the narrow head of a river

shark, lifting itself, water falling from it, and the dorsal fins, black and

triangular, of four others.

I turned and looked up the beach. The paga slaves were there. They stood in